Welcome aboard the Sunset Route, the backbone of the Southern Pacific, a southwestern railroad that stretched from New Orleans to Los Angeles and San Francisco. The SP was once known as the gold standard for the railroads of the world.
What‘s the connection with Lost New London?
Well… every so often, as author John Ruddy states in his richly illustrated books, the Whaling City beneath the Interstate endeavors to reinvent itself within it‘s own confines of six square miles. In the process, like a shaggy dog pestered by fleas, it shakes itself and sheds… and sheds. Among the many with itchy feet shed by New London are John Valley and myself.
Below stands a roadside pair much like ourselves somewhere in rural Waterford, another lost place looking for growth and finding it. They look tired from walking Route 85 and have decided to continue as Jack Kerouac would, thumb up, arm extended. Happy trails, gentlemen.
Eventually we parted ways, but wrote each other now and then. Of the two of us, John was the smarter, more confident, what the schools called a scholar-athlete. He travelled west while I stayed east stumbling from one job to another changing course as if in square dance, often without a partner.
At some point during this hit and miss string of job opportunities, I learned that Valley, as he was known to us, had placed his future in a master‘s program for optometry at the University of Arizona, Tucson. I picked up the writing again and started saving for the airfare, a break in the hiatus I’d placed on my adulthood.
After the third letter, Valley offered me the TV couch in a small adobe rental he shared with Ellen, another grad student and his partner. I was curious, perhaps even envious and had already made plans to visit my uncle and aunt in a watering hole called Niland, a desert railroad junction southeast of Palm Springs. When I‘d saved enough, I gave notice. The set had ended and the musicians were packing up.
The first day, Valley dropped me off at the trailhead for Blacketts Ridge on the north side of town.
You see that wash coming down? The trail parallels it all way to the snow line.
My gaze rose with the altitude and Valley watched as my enthusiasm appeared to wane. He threw up his hands,
You‘ll be okay. In a few places you‘ve got to be half mountain goat, half human fly, but it‘s be worth it. Just keep the wash in sight and you‘ll be fine.
He handed me his watch.
Here. Take this. It‘s three hours up, a little longer back down. Wish I could go with you, but I‘m giving a lecture today on macular degeneration among the elderly.
Captivating, I thought, and nodded.
See you at four.
John Valley and his Saguaro friends.
The first two-thirds of the trek were okay… rather enjoyable, if anything, for the novelty and subtle change in my surrounds. The heat was dry and slowly dropping. My breathing grew heavier forcing me to slow the pace. I stopped twice for the water and crackers riding on my back. While resting, my eyes surveyed the snow covered highlands further up. They seemed to be getting no closer. Then I considered what a hawk would see while sailing through the air above…a strange bug scrambling on two legs with the front two sometimes flailing about… or in more peaceful moments, communing like a praying mantis.
And then as I was considering for the third time a final resting point before heading back down, I saw the scattered patches on the ground.
Snow.
The next day, I went with Valley to the U of A campus where the coeds were smiling and wearing shorts and sandals. Deep tans everywhere. No one and nothing appeared to be over thirty. That afternoon, I ate another Ellen brown bag sandwich and started some studying on my own… a state railroad map showing the part of the Espee‘s Sunset Route running from Tucson to the state border at Yuma and another showing the major rail yard just outside of downtown,
Once northbound trains left the yard, they could go in one of two directions… west toward Yuma and eventually to Los Angeles. Or they could go north and dead end in Phoenix with no real destination beyond. Plus I‘d heard the local sheriff of Maricopa County had a fenced in lot for those who crossed his department‘s path with neither means nor status.
That evening was our last together, my short stay had run it‘s course. We tied the bow at a Mexican restaurant with yummy, filling empanadas, refried beans, and rice… chased down with a pitcher of sangria. As an added bonus before the arrival of our tres leches, I regaled and amused no one with my Bronx/Puerto-Rican flavored command of the Spanish language. No más, por favor.
The hatchback maneuvered the dusty empty streets of aging, neglected craftsman cottages with burglar bars, abandoned cars stripped for resell and the rusty, dented corrugated warehouses of a post war boom long since petered out. A pack of lean, hungry-looking dogs chased us a few blocks before finding another target.
We pulled into a gravel lot where even the chain link fence had found better used elsewhere. Valley kept the motor running and turned to me.
Are you sure about this, I mean… you‘re welcome to stay another night and figure something else out.
I gave an ambiguous nod of the head and looked away at the track, heat waves rising.
You‘re the only person I know, comes for a visit by plane and leaves by train… a freight train, he adds shaking his head. I can wait for you to get on, that is…
I cut Valley off. Thanks, John, but it could be a long wait. (What a self-fulfilling prophecy this turned out to be!) You know, the don‘t exactly publish a schedule.
We got out, hugged a good-bye, and Valley reached over, putting a small brown bag into my knapsack, Ellen‘s third and final sandwich.
One more for the road. Happy trails, bro.
I walked off with a wave, my boots kicking off the Tucson dust.
Prematurely.
The afternoon was lazy, a tad warm, and still as if enjoying a 2-hour siesta. Only the sun moved. Twice a pair of units grumbled down the track, teasing me with a long string of boxcars, pretending to be a train. Then backing back down again on a siding I couldn‘t see… didn‘t want to see. Like an airport, this yard had a control tower with eyes hungry for action. Move too close and you got unwanted company. Too far away and you wouldn‘t catch anything no matter how fast you galloped... except maybe heat exhaustion or a heart attack.
That fucker ain‘t getting on…
Two well-seasoned tramps ressembling Indiana Jones in his fifth sequel walk by with purpose, the talker giving me a brief, dismissive glance. I watch them approach the vanishing point further up north near downtown. They turn to blotches and meld in the heat.
Suddenly I‘m aware of new company. Self doubt has stopped by, hunched down and now sits beside me. I take out Ellen‘s sandwich, eat half, offer nothing. Self doubt has the squished, puckered, fretful face of an old girlfriend. She starts to whisper, her voice rising with reproach.
This is stupid. Think it over. You‘re over your head. What you don‘t know will kill you. Give Valley a call. Find a phone before it gets dark…
Sipping water from my bottle, I think it over and mentally shrug. I get up, swing the knapsack ontomy back and start marching toward downtown.
I‘m alone and grateful. A well-tanned blond smiles down upon me from a billboard dominating a short stretch of I-10 running parallel to the tracks. I stop moving and look over the next hundredfeet or so. No switches, just two shining ribbons of 110 pound steel. All the ties are new, you can smell the creosote, no butt ends sticking up from rotten ties. The ballast is leveled out, smooth. No ironware, studs, crimps, joiners or other track hardware to trip me up. There‘s a small dirt embankment to the right where I can…
Wait, what‘s that?!
BINGO.
Five units coming out of the yard, not pretending to be a train. They moving or creeping but I can hear the speed shifting up a notch as this mechanical centipede gets traction on the curve. I swallow hard. My chest is pounding to match the pumping grind coming from the diesels. I try and compose myself. This is it. I am getting on. I spot the engineer and wave, as if hailing a cab on 42nd Street. The cab window is slid open - no AC - thank God. I yell up, desperate for eye contact.
Yuma?
A middle aged man, his mouth working on chew, looks down on me, totally unperturbed. He‘s enjoying the movement, the power he throttles, the open track ahead… surely I will benefit from this. As he rolls by above I hear the word clearly, as in a judge passing sentence.
Phoenix.
Damn.
The Phoenix job continues its roll by, gaining speed, creating its own hot wind. I step back and study the consist… closed boxcars, tankers, trailers on flat cars… close to a hundred in all… none offering comfort, none offering protection.
It‘s getting dark. I‘m getting nervous. Maybe pucker face is right…
I trudge on over to the embankment I saw before. There‘s a hodge-podge of this and that… bulldozed building debris, ballast piles, semi-stacked rotting railroad ties and a scattering of sagebrush infill straight out of Home and Garden. There is also a small protected clearing in the middle of all this with a dead campfire, some boxes and mud buckets strewn about. My eyes gaze on this lovingly assembled fire pit patio center spread until they catch something perhaps not totally out of place - a man wearing soiled jeans, construction boots and a denim jacket is lying nearby, his head resting on what looks to be a bedroll. I exhale and curse under my breath. Do I turn now and move on?
A different voice this time chimes in. Cast your fate to the warm winds of the desert.
Hello! I yell, a bit too loud, as if the man was armed or deaf. I wait for a response before getting any closer. He rolls slowly over. I can see the start of a beard and a bandana wrapped around his head. His eyes are dull, somewhere else.
What? Who‘s there?
I introduce myself and wait for some sign to move closer. The man seems to be alone. I feel relief. He says his name is Rusty… Rusty from Amarillo. I pull up a bucket and take a seat, keeping about ten feet distance.
My traveling companions seem to have moved on… been under the weather… Rusty sits up on his elbows looking around as if to check where he is. Best for me to rest a bit, get my strength back.
I nod, a bit more at ease.
Where you headed?
Anywhere but Texas.
It‘s a big state.
Not big enough for my liking. Bad for your health.
We chat in short sentences. I split the remainder of Ellen‘s sandwich with him, half my water. Rusty loosens up a bit… tells me he got into a fight at a beaner (Mexican) bar and killed a regular at the place with a beer mug.
What were you doing there? Me with a stupid question.
Selling life insurance, what do you think? Now I got Pancho Villa and Company wanting to collect on mine.
This sits with me a minute before Rusty speaks again.
You like beer? he asks, digging into a pocket. Here‘s a couple of bucks. There‘s a seven-eleven just the other side of that warehouse, across from some houses.
It‘s totally dark now, but even with the city lights you can see stars in the Tucson sky… lots of them. I walk around the abandoned warehouse dodging industrial waste. I find the cluster of tired houses. No pack of dogs, no angry youth lounging in front. The soft glow in the houses radiates a warm welcoming feel. I give a short wave to an old man with a time-worn face seated on a porch swing. He‘s enjoying a cigar and nods in my passing.
The seven-eleven is bright and modern but exudes no warmth. The young men behind the counter are other worldly, from India, their spicy hot food, clean and starched collar shirts, incomprehensible Hindi banter. It‘s as if this convenience store was an alien outpost from the stars plunked down in the middle of beaner country. The cheap beer, two bottles of water, and vacuum-packed expired sandwich bite deeply into my last ten spot.
Rusty doesn‘t answer, doesn‘t move. I‘m sitting back on the over turned bucket, sipping beer, considering my next move.
It‘s quiet, nothing rolls by. Maybe this is a 9-5 railroad, but I doubt it. Cars are being banged into place at the south end of the yard, a mile or two away.
I get up, put a water in my knapsack, leave the rest from the Indians on the bucket.
Happy trails, Rusty.
It‘s getting late. It‘s the streets or the tracks, one or the other. Better odds walking the streets, I figure, the main ones at least. I head downtown … not much traffic, no one on the sidewalks. I watch as the lights ahead change - green, yellow, red. Repeat.
I pray for a break, a little one. It comes as an orange neon sign perched over a building.
Hotel Congress
A hand written sign in the door glass says Vacancy - No tramps. My luck is holding. I go in.
The lighting is dim, a minimal 25 watt bulb arrangement. The lobby wreaks of nicotine, body odor and cheap perfume trying to mask it all. The carpeting is threadbare, the woodwork and paneling remain unpainted and magnificent.
There‘s commotion at the front desk. The clerk is using yesterday‘s edition of the Arizona Daily Star to swat a fly. The banner headline reads Unabomber strikes again. I nod in greeting.
Room?
There is no sign in. The gentleman in the once white V-neck takes my twenty and slides a key over the counter in my location. No eye contact. No banter. The clerk is looking for the fly.
The bathroom is down the hallway. It looks clean though I hadn‘t thought to bring any soap. And as I walk back, I don‘t hear any neighbors… as yet. A hand towel hangs by the small utility sink in the room. No mirror. A copy of Playboy magazine keeps company with a Gideon‘s Bible in the end table drawer. No Kleenex though for the hard parts.
The bed is of the brown steel pipe variety, popular in mental institutions. The sheets and pillow cases have been laundered. The mattress is pregnant and by its mid-section elevation, I‘d say the ninth month. Sweet dreams ahead?
In my awkward sleep, my minds races forward to the distant future. It‘s now May, 2026. I don‘t know if people are using flying cars yet, or if they can do long division in their heads, but I do see my little room as it‘ll appear in another 40 years… not bad. Is that the old mattress‘ off-spring?
I wake, or dream I do, make a pit stop down the hall and am walking back. My room is still stuck in that distant future year, but now there‘s an added attraction.
Suddenly, the irony hits me, as sometimes happens in a dream.
I‘m 70 years old, have weak knees, and suffer from something doctors call erectile dysfunction.
Lord, there‘s no time like the present. Bring me back to 1985 !
Back in 1985 the following morning with a sore back from sleeping on a baby whale. It‘s already past 10 and Rusty is gone. A trio of throb-throbs is inching down the track toward me, all kinds of cars in tow. My hand goes up in a friendly wave.
Yuma?
The engineer nods, giving me a good look over. I can do this. I may not be sure what day it is, but I can and will do this. Good knees, good… stamina.
The throb-throbs are notched at two and straining. Twenty cars roll by… way too quick. Nothing. No place to sit, no place to hide. There are likely at least a half dozen busy crossings ahead and I can‘t risk being seen. More cars roll by… Burlington Northern, Rio Grande, Santa Fe… even a Central Vermont. All boxes, all shut tight. As if management knows.
Two gons swing into view. No cover, but they look empty… from the sidelines. Immediately my legs are in motion, one eye on the ground below me, the other on the ladder end of the first car. It overtakes me… too late a running start. I miss it. My knapsack is bouncing, pummeling me forward like a wildly insane woman with clenched fists of rage.
Now the second gon is picking up speed. It‘s this, or you walk to Yuma, bitch. Or worse. You don‘t walk at all. Another little prayer.
Eye-level with the first ladder rung. My hands grab for dear life, My arms take over and pull me up in a comic book burst of strength that gets my battered feet onto the stirrup.
I‘m on, but can‘t rest. Climb bitch, Sync those arms and legs into a coordinated crawl up the damn ladder. There. Two more. Now one more. Crossing bells getting louder… Push! Up and over!
There. I‘ve fallen inside on something soft and brown. The crossing lights flash by. The clanging bells start to fade. It‘s hard to breathe.
I‘ve landed in a dust bowl.
The gons are carrying dried silt from a dredging operation. The rocking, speed and openess are creating a whirlwind I can‘t leave.
The answer dawns on me. I tear through my knapsack and wrap a Hotel Congress wash towel around my nose and mouth, keeping it snug with little prayers and an overhand knot. Sunglasses protect my eyes and a wool watch cap the rest of my head. Sitting in the forward corner, I am thinking this will work.
An hour goes by, then another. It’s working.
The road is now a single track and I‘ve shifted to a shady corner of the gon. Twice we slow to take a siding and grind to a halt. We wait and wait. Shadowy men are dropping from a boxcar behind me for a piss break. Container trains, a higher priority, rush by.
Again we slow on passing through Casa Grande. The golden arches beckon me to alight for a happy meal. I can‘t get off. I drink more water and focus on nothing.
Back in the desert, now heading directly west toward Yuma. It‘s a long run, like passing through Pennsylvania, east to west. My guard relaxes. I‘m in a dirt bed that is eerily comfortable, the dry, light silt rises along the contours of my body each time I move. I doze off to the gentle rocking of my new crib.
My mind again races, not just in time, but now in place.
I‘m roughing it with another fellow, a burly bear of a young man, tattoos, a wild beard, and ear rings… what we used to call a pirate. We‘re speed-walking against a passing freight, rolling along at a business clip of 15, maybe 20 m.p.h.
Tankers.
This freight is heading west. It‘s early fall. There‘s a chill in the air. Clear sky. The sun is hanging low, each day getting shorter.
A string of high-sided green gons follows the tankers.
The beard has a full pack with bedroll and is already up and over, moving like a tramp acrobat, an agility surprising for a normally slow-motion bear.
My turn. Not so easy. The grab and climb take everything I‘ve got. But I do get over and fall inside, rough landing on a sea of bagged rock salt. The beard is already making his way back toward me, a papa bear, crawling over the bags like some plump, furry insect.
courtesy of Andrei Bersenev
Awoken by the bells of Saint Mary‘s ? …more like the clang-clang-clang of the crossing bells of East Gila as we enter the town‘s small yard. Another McDonalds against the open sky, and then a Carl‘s Jr. Maybe two more hours of daylight. Dogs are barking. Volleys in the air as someone is celebrating a birthday or engagement. No more stops, please.
And so, dear reader, the sleeping desert miles roll by at roughly 40 m.p.h. The sky is darkening. There‘s a faint glow in the west now looming larger. The stars are awakening and, as Hemingway said, the sun also rises.
And the moon.
We‘re approaching the Colorado River. A soft moon light bathes the lemon groves carpeting the desert. They in turn yield to the trailer parks, that look peaceful, almost natural. Are the windows and doors locked here?
Our speed is now a crawl through an empty 6-track yard. The inevitable happens, we grind to a halt. The moon has retreated behind the invading clouds. The glow is gone and I feel uneasy in the silence and darkness that ensues. Five minutes or so pass. I hear a steady crunch-crunch-crunch on the ballast that pauses and resumes. The noise is coming from the rear of the train. There‘s a lantern bobbing in cadence with the crunch.
The lantern checks the couplers and air brake houses between my car and the next.
Hello, sir. Are we stopping here for awhile?
This break in his routine unsettles the brakeman. The business end of the lantern is now reflecting in my face. I say nothing. Silence for a long ten seconds. A static burst from his walkie-talkie brings the glare off my face.
The power‘s off. They‘re breaking this train up.
Is it far into town from here?
A mile or so… maybe two. Best to keep your wits about you.
Thank you, sir. Good night.
Good night, son.
I wait, putting some distance between the brakeman and myself. The adjoining tracks and landscape beyond remain empty, still. After a mile‘s march, the tracks fill with cars and the landscape with pockets of human animation. Some invisible hand pulls me to oneside, about as far as I can go without falling into a drainage ditch.
A gravel road runs now along the tracks. A searchlight from a slow moving military jeep combs the sides of boxcars, most sealed, some not. Two border patrol agents sit in front, one in back. The driver drives. The agent riding shotgun is yelling into a microphone sending a staccato of TexMex-Spanish into the dense, smokey atmosphere. The third agent is skillfully manipulating the searchlight with something that looks like a joystick from a computer game of Pong.
Trying to appear normal and thus invisible, I walk by campfire groups just off railroad property. The line between tramp and railroad worker gets blurred. The desert night gets chilly. Hard-looking men are feeding barrel fires outside time-worn trackside shanties. Some are sleeping, others talking, passing a bottle. They ignore me. I look straight ahead… neither side to side, always forward, never back.
All the while, the rough, pulled slack on loose cars gives the domino effect playing in the background. There are the periodic booms of rolling cars slamming into parked ones. It feels like a carnival, only where is the smell of popcorn, the screams of laughter and excitement from a Coleman Bros. show in Waterford?
A lost soul sits on one end of an empty flat being pulled and shoved as a distant engineer makes or breaks up the mile-long consist per a computerized switch list. A middle aged man in soiled street clothes sits forlorn at one end as the flat car again changes direction. I can see him now more than 40 years later as I write this. Empathy. I feel empathy.
Is this train heading to L.A.? His voice is beaten, his shoulders slumped. No hat. No jacket. No boots, just loafers. Is he running from something like Rusty, or from himself?
They switching… making up the train. You may be here awhile.
The flat and man stop and reverse direction. The invisible hand pushes me on.
Happy trails, I offer with a wave and lack of enthusiasm.
The yard layout is gradually narrowing back to a single track. The topography is rising on either side from darkness to darkness. The shades of deep grey show an arched roadway that forms a castle-like gate leading in and out of the city. Then I start to thinking… what did I just leave? Is there actually a place beyond this portal or more emptyness?
My train of thought is broken by what I see under the bridge. The silhouette of a man crosses the track before me, directly under the bridge, right to left. A moment later another follows, this one a little more hurried. Then a third flits across left to right. My God, how many of them are there?
They‘ll ambush and rob you… or worse, says the puckered voice, reassuringly.
My mouth goes dry, my mind on high alert. Look straight ahead, neither left, nor right, and never back. My thoughts land in the Bible, Psalm 23, Verse 4… though I walk in the shadow of the valley of death, I fear no evil for thou art with me…
Dante‘s Inferno also comes to mind… did I just not leave a version of God‘s waiting room, the vestibule called Limbo that separates us imperiled souls from the endless torments of hell?
I raise my chin, straighten my shoulders and, as in times of long roadside waits between rides, start to sing a random stage song as if before a loving audience…
I‘m getting married in the morning,
Ding-Dong, the bells are gonna chime,
Girls, come and kiss me,
show how you‘ll miss me,
but get me to the church on time!
I‘ve got to be there in the morning,
dress up and looking in me prime,
pull out the stoppers,
let‘s have a whopper,
but get me to the church on time.
Whether my audience waiting within the shadows is amused, I‘ll never know. Their total indifference hangs in a delicate balance as I pass beneath the bridge, eyes forward, already into another chorus from My Fair Lady. The pucker voice is silent. The invisible hand gently shepherds me on.
The first motel is a bust.
From behind the counter, the lady watches me approach, rushes to the door, bolts it, and flips the Vacancy/No Vacancy sign in the door. I‘m ten feet away.
No idea where I am. No map. Nobody to ask. Nothing. I circle through town. The trackside shanties I see again set back from the streets, camouflaged behind peeling paint, plastic flowers and flamingos, never to run again cars and pickups, broken appliances with less than negative value… in other words, a Kentucky bankroll.
Extended families lounge loudly about in front til late in the evening. Some hail from the Bluegrass State, most from the OK state, their lives infinitely more bearable than the soul-grinding boredom and callousness they left back home. Yuma is cheap, forgiving and, at least at this time, without aspirations to be something better. This seems to suit most residents just fine.
At the second motel, the manager husband from Bombay let‘s me in without protest, without a second glance. He asks for some ID, then doesn‘t look at it, writes a different name in the register. The $45 he takes from me leaves me with just enough to cover a Colt 45 tall boy, a 7/11 microwave burrito and the Trailways fare to Niland. Yes, planning matters.
Four walls with a bed, a night table and lamp, a no-picture TV and a private bathroom with hot water. And, alas, a mirror, intact and polished.
Yes, I look like I‘ve been buried alive… for more than a day or two. Picture the Kill Bill movie scene where the protagonist digs his way out of an earthen grave using only his fingers and what‘s left of his fingernails. He crawls out on his belly, manages to stand upright once again and crosses the road into a cafe where he asks the dumb-struck barkeep for a glass of water.
Clothing goes into the dumpster. Three tubs of warm water leave a ring of dog poop-brown industrial waste on the bathtub. My apologies to housekeeping. My apologies to the manager husband who will have to think of a way to keep his non-Bombay wife housekeeper from leaving him and hitting the open road.
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